Friday 29th February 2008.
After getting the rotovator back and running, I decided to have a go! I knew the bottoms of the ponds were still far too wet, but I could do a couple of the sloping ramps at the shallow ends of the ponds. This gave me a little satisfaction, it's another step toward the new breeding season, but it does seem a good way off yet!
Counting up on my fingers from when the two pairs of Zebra finches started sitting on their eggs, I would say if the eggs were viable, they must have chicks by now. It'll be a week or a little longer before I will be able to hear the tell tell sound of the babies calling for food when being fed.
The concrete pond containing the shusui, ochiba, sorigoi, chagoi is getting overcrowded, so today I scooped in with a big pan net at feeding time and removed a bundle of lower quality ones to the 'cheaper' pond and culled out a couple of dozen magoi. I'll do this a few times over the next few days.